ACS: Cells are weird
So as part of my efforts to 'seek out people I don't know', I went to a session yesterday in the colloid division about membranes and membrane proteins. Two talks by a grad student (Niña Hartman) and postdoc (Cheng-Han Yu) (see here for pictures) from Jay Groves' lab were particularly outstanding. They are trying to figure out how TCR channels and other proteins at the immunological synapse are sorted into patterns. The general idea seems to be that clustering controls trafficking, with all kinds of fancy techniques used to provide evidence. The weirder thing to me is, how does the cell know where the synapse is supposed to be?? Something to ponder.
The funny quote of the day came from the morning carbohydrates session, where Amit Basu pointed out (in discussing the very precise molecular recognition of carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions as compared to more general adhesion properties) that sugar is not equal to a patch of micro-nano-honey.
Now I've got to figure out where I'm going - definitely no pattern to that yet!
Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)
Comments
I just read that someone at the current ACS meeting produced evidence supporting cold fusion (shades of Pons and Fleischman 20 years ago). You guys are the boots on the ground. What do the assembled minds of "Nature Chemistry" think of it.
Posted by: retread | March 24, 2009 01:35 PM
Though I'm not a Nature Chemistry editor, here's what I know: I was talking earlier to Aaron Rowe (Wired) who was at the press conference on this topic. Apparently (if I've got my facts right) a big problem is that they aren't seeing any gamma radiation, which should be occurring. When asked about this, apparently the answer was 'we think it's a new kind of fusion.' As this is all second hand, I don't want to be too conclusive, but then again, it sounds like neither are they...
A friend of mine also pointed out that the original report from P+F was received on Mar 22 1989, almost exactly 20 years before the news went out on Monday. Not sure what to make of that, but an interesting tidbit.
Posted by: Catherine | March 24, 2009 11:59 PM
I don't know if any the NChem eds on the ground have been to any of the cold fusion stuff, but I've just read this post from Mitch at the Chemistry Blog. He's a nuclear chemistry PhD student, so is probably more clued-up about this area than most of us.
Posted by: Neil | March 26, 2009 06:59 AM